OAKLAND — Prosecutors have quietly dismissed felony charges against a man who allegedly shot up the home of the federal government’s star witness against ex-Mayor Sheng Thao and the owners of a prominent waste company, court records show.
In a three-page court filing from May, the Alameda County District Attorney’s office cited two statements about the shooting by Mario Juarez, given to Oakland police and then the FBI three months later, that contained “materially inconsistent information.” County prosecutors say they didn’t learn of the conflicting statements until the information came out during the federal prosecution of Thao and her co-defendants, nearly a year after the shooting case was filed.
“In light of the material inconsistencies in (Juarez’s) statement regarding the event and absence of any physical evidence that would corroborate (his) statement, the People cannot sustain their burden beyond a reasonable doubt,” Deputy District Attorney Marisa Tagliareni wrote in the May filing. “The People therefore move the Court to dismiss the instance case for insufficiency of evidence.”
Juarez is expected to take the stand for the government this week in the ongoing trial of Thao, her boyfriend Andre Jones, and California Waste Solutions operators Andy and David Duong, for what prosecutors describe as a scheme to broker political support for Thao in exchange for city contracts and jobs.
The man charged with shooting Juarez’s Oakland home and car, Hermelindo Ramos-Ramos, told police Juarez shot at him first, but that he left the area, returned, and fired at Juarez’s empty car about five minutes later.
When Juarez’s home was shot up on June 9, 2024, he told Oakland police it was an assassination attempt, likely in retaliation for an “investigation” he was involved in, according to police records. The cops investigated it as an attempted murder and the FBI followed suit, attempting to link it to Duong and rushing a series of raids on California Waste Solutions and Thao’s home, according to court records.
In the end, prosecutors were left with a much different picture. In December 2024, Oakland police tracked down Ramos-Ramos’ alleged driver, Jonathan Herbert Rivera, who told police that Ramos-Ramos was looking through the trunk of Juarez’s parked car when he was shot at, prompting the two to flee but return and fire at the vehicle, according to court records.
Ramos-Ramos claimed he just wanted to close the trunk and that he returned because Juarez “told him to drive back.” In September 2024, Juarez admitted he fired first, but said he did so only because Ramos-Ramos pointed a gun at him first.
Tagliareni wrote in court filings that prosecutors were unable to find physical evidence to show the shooting was done “entirely in self-defense.”
There was also a conflict in the description. Andy Duong’s lawyer said in court filings that Juarez initially described his attackers as appearing “Black and Asian,” but other eyewitnesses said they appeared to be Hispanic. The lawyer, Erik Babcock, said the FBI believed the retaliation theory was bolstered when they found Duong had been on the phone with “an Asian man with an alleged violent criminal history” around the time of the shooting, but that “in truth the shooting was related, at most, to a random botched car theft.”
Juarez and Duong operated a company called Evolutionary Homes that purportedly sought to build high-end tiny homes for the homeless. Prosecutors allege that Juarez supported Thao’s candidacy for mayor, even helping her campaign with mailers, with the expectation that the housing company would get a city contract.
The Duongs and Juarez had a violent falling out on May 3, 2024, where Juarez says he was assaulted and robbed. He told a police dispatcher about 10 people had attacked him. His gold chain and watch ended up in Andy Duong’s garage, prosecutors say, from the alleged robbery that day.
Juarez sat down with the FBI a month later, on June 6, 2024, three days before the shooting at his home, according to court records.
Attorneys for Thao, Jones, and the Duongs have attacked Juarez’s credibility since the first day of the trial.
Defense attorneys say the government mistakenly built the bulk of its case on the words of a single, deeply-flawed witness. They have lampooned him in open court as “the master of half-truths,” “a sophisticated political operator” and “a consummate hustler,” while suggesting he lied to prosecutors in order to secure a more lenient sentence.
Juarez pleaded guilty to conspiracy related to the alleged bribery scheme in December 2024, weeks before the indictment against Thao, Jones and the Duongs was unsealed.
Prosecutors, for their part, acknowledged in opening statements that Juarez is “no angel,” yet emphasized that his words are backed up by reams of texts, phone records and secretive audio recordings. The initial alleged incriminating texts were discovered before Juarez became a government informant, an FBI agent testified.
The mailers Juarez sent out for Thao’s campaign were also steeped in controversy. Attacked as racist for darkening the skin of her opponent, Loren Taylor, who is Black, they also led to fraud charges against Juarez when prosecutors accused him of stiffing the mailing company.
In the end, the case was dismissed after Juarez accused then-DA Pamela Price of filing the case to retaliate against him for supporting her ouster. Price was recalled in 2024. The shooting charges case against Ramos-Ramos was filed during the tenure of her replacement, Ursula Jones Dickson, who remains in office.